Erratic

2011

Performance, 4 days

Project for Nuit Blanche in Toronto. Erratic is a low-key performance using human energy to re-create in a small-scale way not only the geological processes that have shaped the region's landforms, but also the machine-assisted ones that continue to do so in an accelerated way. The artist, with assistants, will take a glacial boulder from northern Ontario and, over the days culminating in Nuit Blanche, roll it southward in order to add it to Toronto's already-engineered waterfront land. Using unassisted human power to do a job that could easily be performed on a larger scale with machinery — and continues to be done on an even larger but slower scale by natural processes — is a deliberate reminder of the monumental yet unremarked movements by which a place is formed, and the extent to which these have been technologically accelerated. The undertaking also recalls traditions of journeymen and migrant workers moving with their work. Geological time, human time, and machine time are brought together in a quiet tribute to manual labour and other under-recognized processes.

Post-Nuit-Blanche report: The boulder was sourced in Thornhill and weighed 840 lbs. A team of four took four days, including the 12-hour Nuit Blanche event, to move it manually (assisted by wheels and rollers) down Yonge Street to the Toronto waterfront. The location was tracked on the website http://erraticmove.com.